Just the Facts. Period.

7 Funny Truths About Aunt Flo Tween Daughters Need to Know

I’ve been thinking about my daughter’s period for two years now. When you have a tween daughter, you think about her period almost as much as you try to avoid thinking about your own. Will it be like mine? How will she react? Will I explain everything right? Will she GET it?

You have to prepare your daughter for this new phase of her life, for the adventure that womanhood will bestow upon her. You want to say the right things, use the right terms. You don’t want to be squeamish about the facts—the hows and the whys and their inclination towards other conversations regarding birds, and bees. And penises.

Here’s the thing, though: in all of the knowledge you may impart about ovaries and uteri, blood and babies, pads and tampons, no one ever tells you the really IMPORTANT stuff about having your period. Until now.

1. Wearing a pad isn’t as comfortable as they’d have you think.
This isn’t about thickness. I mean, be grateful for ultra-super-mega-wafer-thins or whatever they’re called. They definitely are not the mattress-sized options that used to exist. What I’m really talking about is WALKING AROUND WITH SOMETHING MOIST snugged up against your lady parts. Comfort and moist are two things that will never live peacefully together.

2. Bloating, cramping, gas . . .You may have covered some symptoms of PMS during your “chat” but unless you explained moodiness as the-imminent-danger-of-white-hot-rage-at-the-drop-of-a-hat-for-no-apparent-reason, you may not have given her all the facts.

3. Your first walk of shame.
Your first real walk of shame happens when you get up in the middle of class and have to lug your purse—or backpack—with you to the bathroom. Believe me, everyone knows you’re not taking your backpack along to the East Wing lav to get some light reading done before study hall.

4. Be careful where you stow your “gear.”
Don’t just throw the supplies in any old pocket of your backpack. Think strategically. You don’t want anything to fall out, but you don’t want it to be inaccessible. Or crushed.

5. You will never be more popular than when you are trying to discreetly slip a pad into your pocket.
You know that cute guy whose attention you can’t seem to get? Try stuffing a 4-inch folded pad covered in crinkly paper in the 3-inch back pocket of your skinny jeans. Miraculously, all eyes are on you.

6. All bets are off once you’re in the stall.
The sound of ripping the pad from your underwear is rivaled only by the takeoff of a 757. This is no Post-it note—you gotta own that shit.

7. Invoking the name of All Things Feminine-Hygiene is your Get Out of Jail Free card.
This is frequently warranted—cramps are no joke—but even if your symptoms are manageable (or non-existent) people don’t want to discuss them with you. (*Pro tip: This is especially helpful as an adult. The best way to escape the laser focus of a nosy coworker is to mention your unmentionables. I especially like to use air quotes with a hushed whisper of “feminine issues.” Shuts them right down. Period.)

This original piece by Melanie Madamba was written exclusively forIn the Powder Room, a division of Hold My Purse Productions, LLC.

Melanie Madamba is The NotsoSuperMom: recovering nerd, mother of three, and coffee addict. She would never want to be confused with a SuperMom or anyone else who seems to have their shit together. She’s not trying to do it all–she’s not even trying to do it right. She’s just trying to get something, ANYTHING, done. She writes to escape the laundry and to pretend someone is listening to her. If you are trying to avoid your laundry, you can kill some time checking her out on Facebook.

And on that note...

Comments

Truly, there is NOTHING louder than the sound of the wrapper coming off. Public restrooms are so weird: you’ll be trying to quietly open the wrapper of a pad while the woman in the next stall is quietly trying to have a bowel movement. BUT WE’RE ALL FRIENDS!!!

I was the shitty mom who let her daughter wear white pants while on her period. I knew it was a bad idea and I knew what would happen. When I picked her up half way home from her bus stop, she was doing the other walk of shame with her jacket tied around her waist. (We lived in Florida, thank god I made her take a jacket, just in case!) She had a horrible leak at school and the back of her white pants were saturated. Luckily another girl saw it, told her about it and told her to tie a jacket around her waist. It had a small spot on the back of it as well. This was her second day at her new school. Why I let her do it I’ll never know. Sadly she learned her lesson the hard way, and I got a worlds shittiest mom award. I still fell horrible every time I think about it. “Cringe”